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Life has always been harsh. I came across a funny little "factoid" about some old Norse warrior with a surname that was something to the effect of "Child-Friend". Tolfsgar Child-Friend. Some shit like that. His peers gave him that name AS A JOKE. He was derided in his group because he argued for mercy when they raided villages and killed everyone.. children included. "Child-Friend" was an INSULT in his day. lol.. You had more respect if your name was Skull-Smasher.

I'd say, as bad as it is, that we've come a long way. At least many parts of society has. The world will keep spinning for a long time, with no end in sight, but people do and have evolved. Don't lament the present times like they are the downfall of humanity. It's not even close. At least now, when you're called a friend of children, it's usually a compliment.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

This very thing happened at my college alma mater last year. Same scenario, football players out of control. Now the college is struggling financially because many out-of-state female students who used to pay full tuition are not returning. Academic departments and others have been requested to prepare for 2-6% lower budgets for the next fiscal year. My sister, who is the director of the museum on campus, told me that... It's was an avoidable circumstance for the college, and a tragedy for the girls who were raped, since it won't go away any time soon for them.

Oh wow, I read that wrong. "Initial charges were dropped as the VICTIM received death threats," not the SUSPECTS. That's weird.

Pretty sick sort of world to be honest, too many people identifying with aggressors not much compassion.

I wonder if there's any shockingly good news on a par with these sorts of shockingly bad news stories?

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

Pretty sick sort of world to be honest, too many people identifying with aggressors not much compassion.

I wonder if there's any shockingly good news on a par with these sorts of shockingly bad news stories?

For it to be shockingly good, people would have had to be expected to act appallingly and instead act nobly.

For one, there was the father of a child murdered at Sandy Hook who showed a lot of grace toward the killer and his dead mother, when many didn't even want to list the mother as a victim along with the others. There were also a lot of noble acts performed by people during Hurricane Sandy, putting their own lives at terrible risk.

There's even stuff involving a lot of effort to do good, even if people weren't risking a ton themselves. Even just this week, a bunch of people got together and rebuilt the destroyed home of an old couple who had lived there in one of the devastated locations.

There is stuff going on all the time, and it's even in the news; but for some reason it just doesn't stick in one's head as much as a mean/traumatic experience does....probably because we are primed to respond to threat in order to survive.

"Hey Capa -- We're only stardust." ~ "Sunshine"

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft